I think it'd be good for the focus to be on active generation, rather than 'mines' or things. to make it a newbie-friendly way to earn gold and contribute to their orgs without getting shoved out of the market by established players who are able to sink thousands of credits or millions of gold into it.
Might be best to split the difference. Let active generators do the heavy lifting, but have mines available that you shove gold (or food. Please make cooks relevant) into to get some additional comms out.
On research upkeep - Remove the lose a level. I would even go far as to move the research devices into a public section of the org, one that everyone can access. This would allow anyone to put anomalies/ comms/gold into it. Research privs (upgrade, select, end) can remain with guilds.
Making things decay and require upkeep I think is just annoying and not a fun. I think trying to make trades as any sort of money maker is a lost cause in today's game. Too many well established characters can undercut everyone and still make profit (even if that profit is only a few thousand). Losing something because you take a break is also not fun to come back to a bunch of things you liked decayed (and might not be able to get back)
tbh, the only time I've seen the guild link come up as relevant with research is when people are yelling at the one person in a dead guild for messing up maintenance on it and there's no actual benefit for the guild so I'd just make it an org thing and replace the thing that's "something to make guilds relevant".
Re: decay on necessities... There are players who find grinding essence annoying and not fun, based on your reasoning here we must look at providing cheap artifacts that remove the need for players to engage with that aspect of the game as well. Its annoying that not everyone can get veneration and have their own cult so should we also treat it with the same metric as trades? The last sentence also seems to ignore that there have been suggestions that account for that concern, such as by making runed things go inactive rather than decay, and realistically the concern about people coming back from an extended break is also easily addressed by incorporating restoration items into the welcomeback package.
Also to note, all of these arguments about why decay is bad also impact newbies and other people who have less credit investment for any reason. People who its more likely would have gold issues recovering from their inventory decaying, non-decay just makes the situation worse for them by making it less and less worthwhile to actually stock goods they need to get started again. None of the "solutions" we've gone through over the years to keep non-decay on essentials but fix that issue have actually resolved that.
Also the fact that established characters are able to undercut people, the fact that it's even minorly profitable to do so, are issues with the game people are trying to get addressed. Arguably, non-decay actually contributes to this issue by reducing the value of gold for people that are more able to generate it and trade goods.
Personally, my expectation is that trades being allowed to continue in this state is kinda a self-fulfilling prophecy. The types of players who'd be happy to sit there and stock shops and make sure the game has everything readily available are discouraged because it's not a valuable pursuit, which then means we get issues with goods because those types of players aren't engaging and fulfilling those needs. And mostly things have just gotten worse.
Might be best to split the difference. Let active generators do the heavy lifting, but have mines available that you shove gold (or food. Please make cooks relevant) into to get some additional comms out.
I'd split it slightly different.
For example, if your active generation is going into a mine instance (with a daily cap) and mining for stuff then you can make it so you manually go and mine, which then can use skills/artifacts to shorten the amount of time it takes to hit your cap. But if you want to skip that you could hire a denizen to do it for you, which still consumes your daily cap. The cost of the denizen would eat into your profits, more profitable materials might require more expensive denizens, etc. Manually mining would always be more profitable but the denizen would free you up to do other things
Having artifacts/skills which are along the lines of "you gather double for each action" with a daily cap would just be a time saving thing and if the amount generated is off you should just need to tweak the daily caps up or down.
Also if sticky goop could go away so it's just one pool, that'd be great. It's hard to buy nice things for new people with most of my generation being sticky...even if it's good motivation to pick up cooking and pump out candies for people.
This. Alarin tends to buy gifts for people whenever I have not sticky goop that I honestly won't use in the immediate future. I'd like to do it more.
A giant panda bounds into view, flanked by a gargantuan gorilla clad in golden plate armour. They both salute as the vision fades.
Remove the Trade Ministry. Remove the possibility of selling comms to orgs. Remove the "stock" of comms that each org owns.
Every org obviously sells every comm for a specific price. When a village tithes comms, instead of the village tithing "100 Steel", it simply tithes Steel, and that org's steel prices drop slightly, dropping more based on how much that village's comm quest for that comm has been performed. If, say Serenwilde almost always controls Estelbar but not a mining village, then over time, they're going to get cheaper and cheaper vegetables/wood/fruit/grain but their metal prices may be a little higher. Not exorbitantly higher, mind you, but enough where it's obvious.
Allow org councils to institute comm policy trades with other orgs. Each time this is done (once per weave), it slightly raises the prices of a chosen comm in the first, but reduces it in the second. Serenwilde wants to trade fruit, wood, and grain to Magnagora for cheaper iron and gems? Maybe Hallifax is in bad need of gems because Gaudiguch keeps stealing Talthos, so they institute a trade policy with Celest in exchange for cheaper steel.
Her voice firm and commanding, Terentia, the Even Bladed says to you, "You have kept your oath to Me, Parhelion. You have sworn to maintain Justice in these troubled times."
Yet if a boon be granted me, unworthy as I am, let it be for a steady hand with a clear eye and a fury most inflaming.
Used to have manse generators, and in the name of scarcity to...SOMEHOW...fix the economy, that was removed.
I can almost promise you that this happened because Someone was afraid comm generators were costing them irl money.
Her voice firm and commanding, Terentia, the Even Bladed says to you, "You have kept your oath to Me, Parhelion. You have sworn to maintain Justice in these troubled times."
Yet if a boon be granted me, unworthy as I am, let it be for a steady hand with a clear eye and a fury most inflaming.
Used to have manse generators, and in the name of scarcity to...SOMEHOW...fix the economy, that was removed.
I can almost promise you that this happened because Someone was afraid comm generators were costing them irl money.
Normally I have no desire to respond to claims like this because there's no benefit in it on our side, however this is outlandish and well-documented enough already that I have absolutely no issues doing so.
It happened because they got out of control and stockpiles of 10-200k of a single comm were becoming common, to the point where scarcity became non-existent in an economy that, while barely functioning as it is, relies on scarcity of commodities to exist. Money was not a concern, the game's health was.
Given how popular artifacts that are essentially non-decay versions of enchantments are, I think it is fair to say that a large portion of the game doesn't care for tedious upkeep.
Used to have manse generators, and in the name of scarcity to...SOMEHOW...fix the economy, that was removed.
I can almost promise you that this happened because Someone was afraid comm generators were costing them irl money.
Normally I have no desire to respond to claims like this because there's no benefit in it on our side, however this is outlandish and well-documented enough already that I have absolutely no issues doing so.
It happened because they got out of control and stockpiles of 10-200k of a single comm were becoming common, to the point where scarcity became non-existent in an economy that, while barely functioning as it is, relies on scarcity of commodities to exist. Money was not a concern, the game's health was.
Look, I know you're obviously going to have more knowledge of how this went down than I will, and I'm sure you're right, where I'm just cynical.
There have just been so many cases years ago where something with an impact on the economy was either severely underestimated or severely overestimated, and I can fully see a specific someone wanting to do away with the mines because they felt that it reduced the chances of someone buying credits in order to buy commodities. I'm not trying to badmouth said person.
I personally feel like the aforementioned 10-200k stock of a comm isn't as detrimental to the economy as your post might suggest, nor do I feel that our economy should or does rely on the scarcity of comms. I am not an economist, and someone with more experience can probably correct me with the greatest of ease, but in an economy where money simply falls out of corpses or sits around on the ground in piles waiting to be handed out to adventurers, any scarcity in the system that is artificially injected into said system is done so for a specific purpose.
We already have decay, we have systems in place that require you to keep fed, or pay comms/gold/credits to increase your chances of success at a task. Artificially making comms more scarce to "keep the economy going" or to keep them from being cheap only serves one real purpose: requiring people to spend irl money or grind on end to keep themselves going.
Again, this post is simply an uninformed opinion. As someone who delights in shop keeping, I don't do these things to make a profit; usually, I am trying to fill a niche or provide a service that others currently aren't. I don't plot out how much to sell things for, because prices shift constantly. I shouldn't have to struggle to find comms for a reasonable price because the economy of imaginary commodities relies on the scarcity of said imaginary items to keep their cost high.
Her voice firm and commanding, Terentia, the Even Bladed says to you, "You have kept your oath to Me, Parhelion. You have sworn to maintain Justice in these troubled times."
Yet if a boon be granted me, unworthy as I am, let it be for a steady hand with a clear eye and a fury most inflaming.
Given how popular artifacts that are essentially non-decay versions of enchantments are, I think it is fair to say that a large portion of the game doesn't care for tedious upkeep.
Given the other posts around yours talking about popular artifacts being detrimental to the economy of the game, I think it is fair to say that the popularity of something doesn't necessarily make it the right thing for the game.
Similarly, we also have four/five other games to look at for guidance. My understanding is that after ~20 years of experience Starmourn was not launched only without non-decay but also with comments from Sarapis that it wasn't a planned expansion and it's even harder to get the equipment you need there. Achaea appears to have some artifacts that do replicate some enchants and a way to make armour permanent but scanning the lists there and in Aetolia it seems non-decay is much more reigned in than here. If decay is so detrimental to player experience and irrelevant to a healthy functioning economy you would expect Starmourn particularly to follow Lusternia's example as opposed to going in basically the opposite direction.
Lusternia is reliant on non-decay because it is a bandaid that has been applied to the supply issue with trade items rather than actually addressing the reasons why supply is an issue in the first place. Again, alternate methods for encouraging trade participation have been added, they have not resolved this issue. Aethertrades and goopcrafting don't make it worth my time to make food for shops, for example.
I like nondecay because replacing the same 50 things repeatedly is miserable and a barrier to getting back into the game after taking a break. The 'right' thing for the game are things which make it fun for players. At its core, Lusternia is a game, not an economy-simulator.
Upping the rate of comms generation from villages slightly, else dropkicking the upkeep costs on Research projects, would be a good start, either way. Finding that 'perfect balance' may very well be impossible and require constant tweaks, sadly...but at least there are options to level the matter a bit.
I like nondecay because replacing the same 50 things repeatedly is miserable and a barrier to getting back into the game after taking a break. The 'right' thing for the game are things which make it fun for players. At its core, Lusternia is a game, not an economy-simulator.
These complaints persist because the current state is not fun. For many players, it's not actually anything because they've just paid to ignore it. For the rest, they have to deal with the issues created by the situation you defend.
The 'right' thing for the game is prioritising putting the trades in the state where new and returning players can easily get what they need. Those saying we can't remove non-decay don't actually appear to be offering any solutions to these issues and it's the same every time the economy comes back in to focus.
Newbies and the like have issues getting stuff because it's not worthwhile to stock.
Non-decay existing comes up as an issue that's creating that situation.
More or less the same players rock up with the same, somewhat fearmongering, points claiming we can't address the negative impact of non-deacy on the game.
We eventually get some other "fix" and months down the track, at best, we're still having the initial issue if not having other issues resulting from the "fix".
This flow is a contributor to this current mess we're in with comms because rather than dealing with the reasons its not worthwhile to stock stuff another attempt was made at fixing it tangentially.
It is a bit amusing though. My suggestion is ~10-20 minutes (potentially less with scripting) of time, likely just once every two rl months with some items being up to rl yearly maintenance. In context, what you're effectively saying is that exceedingly minor inconvenience is more detrimental to game health than newbies and returnees without non-decay not being able to get what they need to play the game and potentially giving up and leaving before they manage to track down someone who can help them.
I also think it's rather obviously not "fun" for those players that regularly join the game who want to be traders and turn a profit off it because we're having issues as they've given up and left or just don't bother.
Honestly this is one of the questions that admin really need to define internally in regards to what their goal is with the economy overhaul.
Personally, I am okay with trades -not- being huge money makers but rather something somebody does because its a fun and creative outlet. Going from that perspective making commodities available is important for people to enjoy their creative sides, but an overhaul of trades themselves and adding lots of microthings for them to sell isn't needed, and the convenience of having things non-decay is important.
Depending on which goal one is aiming for really will inform what route admin choose to take.
Honestly this is one of the questions that admin really need to define internally in regards to what their goal is with the economy overhaul.
Personally, I am okay with trades -not- being huge money makers but rather something somebody does because its a fun and creative outlet. Going from that perspective making commodities available is important for people to enjoy their creative sides, but an overhaul of trades themselves and adding lots of microthings for them to sell isn't needed, and the convenience of having things non-decay is important.
Depending on which goal one is aiming for really will inform what route admin choose to take.
Realistically, what you're actually suggesting is a trades overhaul just with a different end goal. If that route is taken you need to start looking at stuff like:
Basic variations of all essentials should migrate to denizen shops, because otherwise you're ignoring one of the significant issues driving suggestions.
As part of that we should also expand sorcelglass / steal the design skin selling system aetoila has so instead trades just skin those basic essentials rather than crafting competing stuff.
Tattoo powers, furniture benefits, and armour enhancements should be removed. Given your argument seems around everyone should have all trade stuff available all the time, even stuff like enchantments and cures could as well. (edit: other games stuff like acquisitio is just how it works)
Trades should be looked at in the same way purely design trades are handled in other games, potentially creating some barriers to just picking them up, no trans skill bonuses. The lesson investments to learn them should also be heavily revised downward.
Trade artifacts like the spatula should all be refunded. Trade slots should be removed because there's no reason to limit how many anyone can hold if they're purely for designing with refunds to people that have them. There may also need to be some partial refunds for purchased workbenches.
Arguably it may even worth considering in such an overhaul, do commodities have a place in the game at all. You could just delete them, give everything gold/power costs and be done with it.
edit: Goop crafting and aethertrades were added with the goal of providing value generation to trades, so they may also be up for removal/reworking because they don't fit in a view that trades are just for designing. (They also indicate that the most recent significant work of trades reinforced that they are for profit, against your stance)
Of course, that also means changing a wonder item and at least three series of curios, along with thousands of credits and lessons of potential purchases evaporating from the game. As opposed to fixing the economy and making it function as it seems intended which would provide additional meaningful activities for players to engage in, fix up artifacts that don't really serve a purpose, and potentially provide more ways for players to invest in the game.
*shrug* It's not a slippery slope argument nor are words being put in your mouth.
You stated you are "okay with trades not being huge money makers but rather something somebody does because its a fun and creative outlet" and your view that "an overhaul of trades themselves and adding lots of microthings for them to sell isn't needed, and the convenience of having things non-decay is important."
This is in contrast to the way that trades have historically been approached and would indicate a pivot in perspective on trades.
One of the most notable requests we've seen over the life of the game is for items that have no functional purpose they're just for fun with these being rejected on the grounds that all trade items should have a mechanical purpose.
Similarly, various trade artifacts have the benefit of covering requirements (Bookbinders guill) or increasing outputs (Cooking spatula) which ultimately factor into profit. (i.e, if players weren't constantly undercutting the spatula would double your profits)
Goop items were added to the game to generate profit for traders, same with aethertrades. (to note, these "microthings" have been added as attempts to make things work while keeping non-decay)
The rework has been requested for years because the game is set up in a way that expects that there are traders there and selling trade goods to players, but that's not working. We have seen changes aligned with creating profit for trades indicating trades are money makers not just for a creative outlet. There have been generations of players coming into the game and expecting to make a profit off of trades, there's even been a new Seren that came in with this within the past fortnight who was looking at them to work with their rp.
So... simply, whichever direction is chosen, the game needs to ensure that trades are aligned with that.
If trades should be profitable we need to make trades profitable. If trades shouldn't be then we need to reduce the dependence of other aspects of the game on them so that way there aren't issues if people don't engage with them.
The direction doesn't change the underlying issues, just how they would be approached.
You're misunderstanding / misinterpreting his thoughts, I think.
He's "okay with trades not being huge money makers but rather something somebody does because its a fun and creative outlet" - this is actually the way that most trades are right now. No changes are actually needed to make this end of it work. The only change actually required is the second sentence, which you appear to have cut out for some reason despite its essential nature in Uzriel's post. In fact, you cut out the important part in the middle and just quoted the bookends. I'll paste it here:
"Going from that perspective making commodities available is important for people to enjoy their creative sides"
This is his suggestion. Make commodities available so people can enjoy the systems we have in place now. He's not suggesting a slippery slope or any kind of mass overhaul of anything like you're pushing on him.
You can debate that if you'd like, but that's seriously all he appears to be asking for. Everything else in that laundry list of extra changes you're coming up with appears to be entirely from your own imagination, he never said any of it.
You're misunderstanding / misinterpreting his thoughts, I think.
He's "okay with trades not being huge money makers but rather something somebody does because its a fun and creative outlet" - this is actually the way that most trades are right now. No changes are actually needed to make this end of it work. The only change actually required is the second sentence, which you appear to have cut out for some reason despite its essential nature in Uzriel's post. In fact, you cut out the important part in the middle and just quoted the bookends. I'll paste it here:
"Going from that perspective making commodities available is important for people to enjoy their creative sides"
This is his suggestion. Make commodities available so people can enjoy the systems we have in place now. He's not suggesting a slippery slope or any kind of mass overhaul of anything like you're pushing on him.
You can debate that if you'd like, but that's seriously all he appears to be asking for. Everything else in that laundry list of extra changes you're coming up with appears to be entirely from your own imagination, he never said any of it.
And I disagree that trades are actually functioning as intended right now. Given not only the aspects of the trade system highlighted but the aforementioned changes that have been implemented over time pointing towards trades being intended as a profitable activity. The requests for economy fixes over the years fall in line with that, so it's not unreasonable to expect we're going to keep getting players who expect trades to be a profitable activity and are disappointed that they're not.
Therefore it's a choice, as he noted. However, it is between fixing something that broken or not. And if the admin decide its easier to not make trades work as a profit-making activity then they should use the rework to make changes that would improve trades, minimise the impact of players not actively selling goods, and remove elements that point to it being a profit-making activity.
Either way, at the end of this rework it'd pretty great to stop hearing about it being too difficult to get basic equipment. For those who missed it, it being too hard to get basic equipment was also a complaint in the days when we were overflowing with commodities and the changes leading to our current comms issues were meant to somehow help address that issue. So arguably, fixing comms isn't going to change things because we've already seen the other side of that solution.
If we can't find a meaningful reason for players to make sure there are always weapons, armor, etc always stocked and ready then we should just get denizens to sell them.
The true cost commodity of Lusternia's economy is time. The time players invest into producing said commodity. If you take the smallest block of time needed to do a game task - say 5-10 minutes and figure out how much gold can be produced in that time. You've got your basic unit of measurement to figure out how much something should cost.
p.s if it's difficult to get basic equipment iG, then the answer is to make it easily accessible by reducing the cost of lessons needed to gain the skills to make these items. Things like buffs and resistances for equipment, could remain as they are.
I like nondecay because replacing the same 50 things repeatedly is miserable and a barrier to getting back into the game after taking a break. The 'right' thing for the game are things which make it fun for players. At its core, Lusternia is a game, not an economy-simulator.
Agreed. I've come back after long periods of time away, didn't think to replace stuff and almost drowned/died to something dumb several times. I slapped a rune onto everything I could, lol.
A giant panda bounds into view, flanked by a gargantuan gorilla clad in golden plate armour. They both salute as the vision fades.
Also, as you guys said you were looking at aethergoop generation - I think it would be neat if instead of the current version of refining, we had something similar to strange moods from dwarf fortress. When doing activities (hunting/influencing, whatever) you'd occasionally be hit with inspiration to make an item with certain random commodities, and you'd have to go around and gather them. Difficulty of comms could vary from just traditional things like eggs to having to quest for things like firegems or whitelemons. When you have all the things, you bop them into a ridiculous procedurally generated item (Who doesn't want cupcakes menacing with spikes of obsidian?) and can trade that off to a gnome.
Also, as you guys said you were looking at aethergoop generation - I think it would be neat if instead of the current version of refining, we had something similar to strange moods from dwarf fortress. When doing activities (hunting/influencing, whatever) you'd occasionally be hit with inspiration to make an item with certain random commodities, and you'd have to go around and gather them. Difficulty of comms could vary from just traditional things like eggs to having to quest for things like firegems or whitelemons. When you have all the things, you bop them into a ridiculous procedurally generated item (Who doesn't want cupcakes menacing with spikes of obsidian?) and can trade that off to a gnome.
I'd like that as well, but I like randomly generated things.
We also already have cup cakes that menace with spikes of sugar! You can't steal my cup cakes, Llani!
But yeah, things decaying always is painful when coming back to a game. I'm exceptionally grateful designs themselves don't decay.
Bookbinder by trade! Designer of most other things.
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head. Lusternia simply has too many things to have to replace on a regular basis. The tediousness of having to replace it all is not going to be a net benefit for the player experience.
I dislike spending resources maintaining abilities like runes and tarot in ways that don't add anything to the game.
Weapons need to be upkept or runed so they can go on Mboagn's list.
Cures have been made as small as an inconvenience as possible compared to what they used to be which is really good! But they're still annoying when you do need to refresh them, especially since they normally run out mid-combat.
If Lusternia was a resource management game, a bit more tactical in some way, then this'd all be megacool... But resources are either too common or not common enough in an arbitrary way and Lusternia doesn't feel like that sort of game.
I don't know what my point is here but resources should be invested in things that are meaningful, and not just become more skinner box type mechanics.
I read about the farm ideas earlier and I was just thinking about what if more resources became like Herbalism? Gems could be harvested from nodes or something similar, fruit could be farmed instead of snatched out of the hands of dying furrikin.
The fun thing about Herbalism is that it's an actual economy. Money is swapped between players rather than coming from the void or drifting into the void. Real life economies don't really have goldsinks like games do.
Even if we do need them, current goldsinks clearly aren't working. There are still players walking around with more gold than they'll ever need strolling around, and this isn't really a bad thing.
If you can work any sense out of this post then I hope it helped!
wear all your clothes and jewelry in the right order because of clothing layers
I probably forgot a lot of things; this is just off the top of my head.
...
...
...
Yeah, just nondecay things.
So if you look at the actual suggestion it's actually more like this...
Buy armour
Sacrifice armour to give your runed armour decay time, re-enabling it.
Buy weapon
Sacrifice weapon to give your runed weapon decay time, re-enabling it.
Given the actual suggestion also includes not trying to make all thirteen trades work but just make five and mark the rest as not for profit/purely creative, stuff like vials, tinderboxes, and shovels could be considered irrelevant because the basic versions are available through arts. They're also just a pre-requisite to use consumables and sorcelglass/artisan pipes could just be put in the creative category so their continuing as non-decay wouldn't impact things.
Enchantments are also interesting, again in the actual context of the suggestion there'd be improvements to make it so enchantments can be sold directly from shops to make it significantly easier to get them. But it's also possible jewellery, and general clothing, would be in the creative side of things (Aetolia actually does this from what I can see) so then you'd look at how enchantment might work in that context. Borrowing from there as an example, we could have cubes tuned to specific enchantments which apply the enchant if it's not already active on the item. The admin could potentially also create a command which is just "recharge all cubes"
Jewellery and cubes not decaying isn't actually super relevant there, it might mean players would need to invest in more than one cube and rune but it seems more logical to do the same thing as alchemy and have an enchantment rift with cubes really being more for shops the same as kegs. It removes the need to track down an enchanter for a specific enchant cause you can just buy them in shops which makes things nicer for players without as much investment, same as the enchantment rift would save their charges if they go inactive before they get non-decay stuff.
And if you do that, the impact on the people fretting about it having some massive negative impact is that they trade in their cubes, fill up their enchantmentrift, link them to their jewellery, and instead of recharging their cube they could potentially just use a different command to top up their rift.
This is why I say it could be potentially quite minor because the goal is to encourage traders to stock things, but you can set that up in a way that also minimises the negative impact on the customer side. (arguably, changing enchantments like this would vary between no meaningful impact on some players to a significant positive benefit for others)
edit: Stuff like prestige can also be handled rather trivially if needed, like if your clothing and jewellery can be made non-decay because it's from a creative trade rather than profit one.
You could just make it that they just don't give prestige if they're out of usable time, then put something like a potion in with a command of like... polish|clean <id|all> which consumes the potion and reactivates them. It doesn't actually need to make them unwearable or anything so all those steps in your list would be replaced by one or two commands using a product you'd expect is readily available.
Comments
Re: decay on necessities...
There are players who find grinding essence annoying and not fun, based on your reasoning here we must look at providing cheap artifacts that remove the need for players to engage with that aspect of the game as well. Its annoying that not everyone can get veneration and have their own cult so should we also treat it with the same metric as trades?
The last sentence also seems to ignore that there have been suggestions that account for that concern, such as by making runed things go inactive rather than decay, and realistically the concern about people coming back from an extended break is also easily addressed by incorporating restoration items into the welcomeback package.
Also to note, all of these arguments about why decay is bad also impact newbies and other people who have less credit investment for any reason. People who its more likely would have gold issues recovering from their inventory decaying, non-decay just makes the situation worse for them by making it less and less worthwhile to actually stock goods they need to get started again. None of the "solutions" we've gone through over the years to keep non-decay on essentials but fix that issue have actually resolved that.
Also the fact that established characters are able to undercut people, the fact that it's even minorly profitable to do so, are issues with the game people are trying to get addressed. Arguably, non-decay actually contributes to this issue by reducing the value of gold for people that are more able to generate it and trade goods.
Personally, my expectation is that trades being allowed to continue in this state is kinda a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The types of players who'd be happy to sit there and stock shops and make sure the game has everything readily available are discouraged because it's not a valuable pursuit, which then means we get issues with goods because those types of players aren't engaging and fulfilling those needs. And mostly things have just gotten worse.
For example, if your active generation is going into a mine instance (with a daily cap) and mining for stuff then you can make it so you manually go and mine, which then can use skills/artifacts to shorten the amount of time it takes to hit your cap.
But if you want to skip that you could hire a denizen to do it for you, which still consumes your daily cap. The cost of the denizen would eat into your profits, more profitable materials might require more expensive denizens, etc. Manually mining would always be more profitable but the denizen would free you up to do other things
Having artifacts/skills which are along the lines of "you gather double for each action" with a daily cap would just be a time saving thing and if the amount generated is off you should just need to tweak the daily caps up or down.
A giant panda bounds into view, flanked by a gargantuan gorilla clad in golden plate armour. They both salute as the vision fades.
Remove the Trade Ministry. Remove the possibility of selling comms to orgs. Remove the "stock" of comms that each org owns.
Every org obviously sells every comm for a specific price. When a village tithes comms, instead of the village tithing "100 Steel", it simply tithes Steel, and that org's steel prices drop slightly, dropping more based on how much that village's comm quest for that comm has been performed. If, say Serenwilde almost always controls Estelbar but not a mining village, then over time, they're going to get cheaper and cheaper vegetables/wood/fruit/grain but their metal prices may be a little higher. Not exorbitantly higher, mind you, but enough where it's obvious.
Allow org councils to institute comm policy trades with other orgs. Each time this is done (once per weave), it slightly raises the prices of a chosen comm in the first, but reduces it in the second. Serenwilde wants to trade fruit, wood, and grain to Magnagora for cheaper iron and gems? Maybe Hallifax is in bad need of gems because Gaudiguch keeps stealing Talthos, so they institute a trade policy with Celest in exchange for cheaper steel.
It happened because they got out of control and stockpiles of 10-200k of a single comm were becoming common, to the point where scarcity became non-existent in an economy that, while barely functioning as it is, relies on scarcity of commodities to exist. Money was not a concern, the game's health was.
There have just been so many cases years ago where something with an impact on the economy was either severely underestimated or severely overestimated, and I can fully see a specific someone wanting to do away with the mines because they felt that it reduced the chances of someone buying credits in order to buy commodities. I'm not trying to badmouth said person.
I personally feel like the aforementioned 10-200k stock of a comm isn't as detrimental to the economy as your post might suggest, nor do I feel that our economy should or does rely on the scarcity of comms. I am not an economist, and someone with more experience can probably correct me with the greatest of ease, but in an economy where money simply falls out of corpses or sits around on the ground in piles waiting to be handed out to adventurers, any scarcity in the system that is artificially injected into said system is done so for a specific purpose.
We already have decay, we have systems in place that require you to keep fed, or pay comms/gold/credits to increase your chances of success at a task. Artificially making comms more scarce to "keep the economy going" or to keep them from being cheap only serves one real purpose: requiring people to spend irl money or grind on end to keep themselves going.
Again, this post is simply an uninformed opinion. As someone who delights in shop keeping, I don't do these things to make a profit; usually, I am trying to fill a niche or provide a service that others currently aren't. I don't plot out how much to sell things for, because prices shift constantly. I shouldn't have to struggle to find comms for a reasonable price because the economy of imaginary commodities relies on the scarcity of said imaginary items to keep their cost high.
Similarly, we also have four/five other games to look at for guidance. My understanding is that after ~20 years of experience Starmourn was not launched only without non-decay but also with comments from Sarapis that it wasn't a planned expansion and it's even harder to get the equipment you need there.
Achaea appears to have some artifacts that do replicate some enchants and a way to make armour permanent but scanning the lists there and in Aetolia it seems non-decay is much more reigned in than here.
If decay is so detrimental to player experience and irrelevant to a healthy functioning economy you would expect Starmourn particularly to follow Lusternia's example as opposed to going in basically the opposite direction.
Lusternia is reliant on non-decay because it is a bandaid that has been applied to the supply issue with trade items rather than actually addressing the reasons why supply is an issue in the first place. Again, alternate methods for encouraging trade participation have been added, they have not resolved this issue. Aethertrades and goopcrafting don't make it worth my time to make food for shops, for example.
The 'right' thing for the game are things which make it fun for players. At its core, Lusternia is a game, not an economy-simulator.
These complaints persist because the current state is not fun.
For many players, it's not actually anything because they've just paid to ignore it. For the rest, they have to deal with the issues created by the situation you defend.
The 'right' thing for the game is prioritising putting the trades in the state where new and returning players can easily get what they need. Those saying we can't remove non-decay don't actually appear to be offering any solutions to these issues and it's the same every time the economy comes back in to focus.
- Newbies and the like have issues getting stuff because it's not worthwhile to stock.
- Non-decay existing comes up as an issue that's creating that situation.
- More or less the same players rock up with the same, somewhat fearmongering, points claiming we can't address the negative impact of non-deacy on the game.
- We eventually get some other "fix" and months down the track, at best, we're still having the initial issue if not having other issues resulting from the "fix".
This flow is a contributor to this current mess we're in with comms because rather than dealing with the reasons its not worthwhile to stock stuff another attempt was made at fixing it tangentially.It is a bit amusing though. My suggestion is ~10-20 minutes (potentially less with scripting) of time, likely just once every two rl months with some items being up to rl yearly maintenance.
In context, what you're effectively saying is that exceedingly minor inconvenience is more detrimental to game health than newbies and returnees without non-decay not being able to get what they need to play the game and potentially giving up and leaving before they manage to track down someone who can help them.
I also think it's rather obviously not "fun" for those players that regularly join the game who want to be traders and turn a profit off it because we're having issues as they've given up and left or just don't bother.
Personally, I am okay with trades -not- being huge money makers but rather something somebody does because its a fun and creative outlet. Going from that perspective making commodities available is important for people to enjoy their creative sides, but an overhaul of trades themselves and adding lots of microthings for them to sell isn't needed, and the convenience of having things non-decay is important.
Depending on which goal one is aiming for really will inform what route admin choose to take.
Trade slots should be removed because there's no reason to limit how many anyone can hold if they're purely for designing with refunds to people that have them.
There may also need to be some partial refunds for purchased workbenches.
Of course, that also means changing a wonder item and at least three series of curios, along with thousands of credits and lessons of potential purchases evaporating from the game.
As opposed to fixing the economy and making it function as it seems intended which would provide additional meaningful activities for players to engage in, fix up artifacts that don't really serve a purpose, and potentially provide more ways for players to invest in the game.
Edit: I've no intention of getting into a debate, I've said my opinions above, any additional responses I'm going to be leaving.
You stated you are "okay with trades not being huge money makers but rather something somebody does because its a fun and creative outlet" and your view that "an overhaul of trades themselves and adding lots of microthings for them to sell isn't needed, and the convenience of having things non-decay is important."
This is in contrast to the way that trades have historically been approached and would indicate a pivot in perspective on trades.
- One of the most notable requests we've seen over the life of the game is for items that have no functional purpose they're just for fun with these being rejected on the grounds that all trade items should have a mechanical purpose.
- Similarly, various trade artifacts have the benefit of covering requirements (Bookbinders guill) or increasing outputs (Cooking spatula) which ultimately factor into profit. (i.e, if players weren't constantly undercutting the spatula would double your profits)
- Goop items were added to the game to generate profit for traders, same with aethertrades. (to note, these "microthings" have been added as attempts to make things work while keeping non-decay)
The rework has been requested for years because the game is set up in a way that expects that there are traders there and selling trade goods to players, but that's not working. We have seen changes aligned with creating profit for trades indicating trades are money makers not just for a creative outlet. There have been generations of players coming into the game and expecting to make a profit off of trades, there's even been a new Seren that came in with this within the past fortnight who was looking at them to work with their rp.So... simply, whichever direction is chosen, the game needs to ensure that trades are aligned with that.
If trades should be profitable we need to make trades profitable.
If trades shouldn't be then we need to reduce the dependence of other aspects of the game on them so that way there aren't issues if people don't engage with them.
The direction doesn't change the underlying issues, just how they would be approached.
And I disagree that trades are actually functioning as intended right now.
Given not only the aspects of the trade system highlighted but the aforementioned changes that have been implemented over time pointing towards trades being intended as a profitable activity. The requests for economy fixes over the years fall in line with that, so it's not unreasonable to expect we're going to keep getting players who expect trades to be a profitable activity and are disappointed that they're not.
Therefore it's a choice, as he noted. However, it is between fixing something that broken or not.
And if the admin decide its easier to not make trades work as a profit-making activity then they should use the rework to make changes that would improve trades, minimise the impact of players not actively selling goods, and remove elements that point to it being a profit-making activity.
Either way, at the end of this rework it'd pretty great to stop hearing about it being too difficult to get basic equipment.
For those who missed it, it being too hard to get basic equipment was also a complaint in the days when we were overflowing with commodities and the changes leading to our current comms issues were meant to somehow help address that issue. So arguably, fixing comms isn't going to change things because we've already seen the other side of that solution.
If we can't find a meaningful reason for players to make sure there are always weapons, armor, etc always stocked and ready then we should just get denizens to sell them.
A giant panda bounds into view, flanked by a gargantuan gorilla clad in golden plate armour. They both salute as the vision fades.
We also already have cup cakes that menace with spikes of sugar! You can't steal my cup cakes, Llani!
I probably forgot a lot of things; this is just off the top of my head.
...
...
...
Yeah, just nondecay things.
Explorer (80%), Achiever (53%), Socializer (53%), Killer (13%)
Bartle Taxonomy
(test yourself)
Weapons need to be upkept or runed so they can go on Mboagn's list.
Cures have been made as small as an inconvenience as possible compared to what they used to be which is really good! But they're still annoying when you do need to refresh them, especially since they normally run out mid-combat.
If Lusternia was a resource management game, a bit more tactical in some way, then this'd all be megacool... But resources are either too common or not common enough in an arbitrary way and Lusternia doesn't feel like that sort of game.
I don't know what my point is here but resources should be invested in things that are meaningful, and not just become more skinner box type mechanics.
I read about the farm ideas earlier and I was just thinking about what if more resources became like Herbalism? Gems could be harvested from nodes or something similar, fruit could be farmed instead of snatched out of the hands of dying furrikin.
The fun thing about Herbalism is that it's an actual economy. Money is swapped between players rather than coming from the void or drifting into the void. Real life economies don't really have goldsinks like games do.
Even if we do need them, current goldsinks clearly aren't working. There are still players walking around with more gold than they'll ever need strolling around, and this isn't really a bad thing.
If you can work any sense out of this post then I hope it helped!
- Buy armour
- Sacrifice armour to give your runed armour decay time, re-enabling it.
- Buy weapon
- Sacrifice weapon to give your runed weapon decay time, re-enabling it.
Given the actual suggestion also includes not trying to make all thirteen trades work but just make five and mark the rest as not for profit/purely creative, stuff like vials, tinderboxes, and shovels could be considered irrelevant because the basic versions are available through arts. They're also just a pre-requisite to use consumables and sorcelglass/artisan pipes could just be put in the creative category so their continuing as non-decay wouldn't impact things.Enchantments are also interesting, again in the actual context of the suggestion there'd be improvements to make it so enchantments can be sold directly from shops to make it significantly easier to get them. But it's also possible jewellery, and general clothing, would be in the creative side of things (Aetolia actually does this from what I can see) so then you'd look at how enchantment might work in that context.
Borrowing from there as an example, we could have cubes tuned to specific enchantments which apply the enchant if it's not already active on the item. The admin could potentially also create a command which is just "recharge all cubes"
Jewellery and cubes not decaying isn't actually super relevant there, it might mean players would need to invest in more than one cube and rune but it seems more logical to do the same thing as alchemy and have an enchantment rift with cubes really being more for shops the same as kegs.
It removes the need to track down an enchanter for a specific enchant cause you can just buy them in shops which makes things nicer for players without as much investment, same as the enchantment rift would save their charges if they go inactive before they get non-decay stuff.
And if you do that, the impact on the people fretting about it having some massive negative impact is that they trade in their cubes, fill up their enchantmentrift, link them to their jewellery, and instead of recharging their cube they could potentially just use a different command to top up their rift.
This is why I say it could be potentially quite minor because the goal is to encourage traders to stock things, but you can set that up in a way that also minimises the negative impact on the customer side. (arguably, changing enchantments like this would vary between no meaningful impact on some players to a significant positive benefit for others)
edit: Stuff like prestige can also be handled rather trivially if needed, like if your clothing and jewellery can be made non-decay because it's from a creative trade rather than profit one.
You could just make it that they just don't give prestige if they're out of usable time, then put something like a potion in with a command of like... polish|clean <id|all> which consumes the potion and reactivates them.
It doesn't actually need to make them unwearable or anything so all those steps in your list would be replaced by one or two commands using a product you'd expect is readily available.